


count to ten

by uraa



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Swearing, not rly a high school au but theyre high school age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 21:52:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9035258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uraa/pseuds/uraa
Summary: Two facts that he’s been trying very hard to ignore, and up until now has had a pretty good time doing so: one, that his power is activated by feelings of attraction, and two, he has the most hopeless, embarrassing, awkward crush he’s ever experienced in his life--on Mikleo.





	

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 2016 tales of secret santa for cephalopadre !! happy holidays and i hope you enjoy this silly fic ;;

From under the blankets piled on his bed, still half-submerged in the murky waters of sleep, Sorey can hear something ringing.

It takes him a few moments to place the source of the sound, and what it is, exactly, but it doesn’t take him long to recognize the cheery notes of a ringtone. It’s the one he set as Mikleo’s.

His first thought is, _Why is Mikleo calling me this late?_ As he pries his eyes open and reaches for the phone on his bedside table, a second thought occurs to him: Mikleo wouldn’t call unless it was something really important. The shock and worry helps shake some of the sleepiness from him, and he accepts the call quickly.

“So- _rey._ ”

Sorey closes his mouth, a greeting dying on his tongue. Mikleo’s voice sounds fuzzy and indistinct across the phone, but Sorey still hears the way it cracks. He would normally laugh and tease him a little, but considering that Mikleo’s call woke him up a little before three in the morning, it’s probably not the best time for jokes.

“Hey,” he says, blinking into the glow of his electric clock and pulling the blankets back over his shoulders, “what’s going on?” His eyelids sink as soon as his head hits the pillow, and he lets them close, focusing on the sound of Mikleo’s voice to keep himself awake.

“Did you get my texts?”

“No, sorry,” says Sorey. “I was— you know, sleeping.”

Mikleo laughs. It’s tinged with hysteria, but like all his laughs, still ranks pretty high on the ‘best sounds Sorey’s ever heard’ list. “Okay, fair, I don’t know what I was expecting. They’re not that important. I just- my mom’s asleep and I didn’t want to wake her up.”

“Mik, are you okay?” Sorey asks. “Why did you call?”

This time Mikleo’s laugh is definitely on the verge of hysterics, and when he speaks his voice is strained with panic. “I just- oh my god, Sorey, you won’t believe what’s going on. I think I might be- hallucinating, even.”

Sorey frowns, his mind already tearing through possibilities. “What is it? Are you sick? If you need medical attention you should definitely wake your mom up-”

“No, it’s not that,” says Mikleo, “I’m fine, physically. I think. It’s just that… things are happening that definitely should _not_ be happening. I can’t figure it out.”

Sorey’s getting a sense, more and more, that something bigger than both of them is going wrong. “Like what?”

“I…” Mikleo breaks off self-consciously. “I think something happened to our plumbing.”

“Something weird?”

“Yeah, you could definitely say that. The water froze.”

Sorey pauses. “Like…in the pipes? In the sink?” He’s seen a video of liquids being cooled to temperatures below freezing and not actually forming ice until they were agitated, but that was with things like soda. “Was it slushy? That’s definitely weird, but I’ve heard it can happen-”

“It was in a cup, and it was solid,” says Mikleo.

“How solid?”

“Solid! As in: retains a fixed volume and shape, not easily compressible, rigid?”

“I know what a solid is,” says Sorey huffily, “That’s just- uh, really weird.” He stops, struggling for words. “That’s really weird.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” After a pause, in which Mikleo clearly expects Sorey to say something and is disappointed when he doesn't, he continues. “I didn’t do anything to it. It was just normal water, for the most part.”

“I mean, it was probably just some plumbing issue, like you said,” says Sorey, “and it _is_ winter. I wouldn’t be so worried, Mik. We can figure it out in the morning. You should take a photo or something, so people believe you.”

“You’re probably right,” sighs Mikleo. “But by any chance… you wouldn’t know how to turn off a faucet without using the handles, would you?”

Sorey snorts. “What, did your faucet suddenly stop working too? Maybe you have a ghost.”

He can practically _feel_ Mikleo’s eye roll through the phone. “A ghost who really loves to mess with the plumbing at three a.m.?”

“That’s like, the whole definition of poltergeists, though. It probably just got tired of you clogging the drain with all of your bath products.”

“Excuse me? The only bath products I use are soap and shampoo and you know that, Sorey, you took a shower in this exact bathroom a week ago-”

“So all of those bottles were your mom’s, then?”

“Yes!”

“Even the three different men’s shower gels?”

“I don’t _use_ all of those, they were just on sale so I got three at once and now they’re on standby for when I run out-” Mikleo cuts himself off with a sigh. “Never mind. Do you know how to turn the sink off or not?”

“Oh, you can turn off the main water supply underneath it,” Sorey explains. “I think you can, at least. You can do that with toilets; it’s probably worth a shot.”

“Thanks,” says Mikleo dryly. “I’m glad you’re useful for something, at least.” There’s a long period of indistinct noise, in which Sorey hears something like a squeaky cabinet, several boxes hitting the floor, and the rustling of grocery bags. “The knob, right?” Mikleo says finally, “it won’t turn.”

“Ugh, seriously? Maybe it’s just stuck.”

Mikleo laughs a little. “I don’t want to break this one too, but I’ll try- don’t hang up, I’ll put you on speaker.”

Sorey hears the clack of the phone being set down. “‘This one too?’ You broke your faucet?”

“Yeah, it’s old,” says Mikleo. “I was just trying to turn off the water, but I guess I turned it the wrong way or something. It’s plastic, so I guess it was just brittle. The handle snapped off.” He pauses. “Which way do I turn this? Clockwise?”

“Uh,” says Sorey, the visualization of a sink handle too much for his sleepy mind to handle. “I don’t know. Sure, clockwise.”

“Okay.” Sorey can hear soft sounds of effort if he strains his hearing, but it doesn’t sound like Mikleo’s making much progress until there’s a loud snap and high noise, almost like whistling. It’s accompanied by a soft yelp of surprise and the patter of water on the tiled floor. _Oh boy,_ Sorey thinks.

“Did you seriously just break that, too?”

“Fuck,” Mikleo says, “yes, I did, fuck, fuck, _shit-_ ”

“Mikleo, put a bucket under it or something! Don’t just panic!”

“I can’t exactly put a bucket under this, Sorey; it was _your_ suggestion to turn it clockwise, and I’m trying, so-” There’s a pause that drags on long enough that Sorey clears his throat.

“Hey? Everything okay?”

Mikleo picks up the phone. “Um.”

Sorey waits for him to continue, but he doesn’t. “What happened?”

Another pause. “You’re not going to believe this.” Mikleo sounds relieved and scared and bewildered, all at the same time.

“I’ll believe it. Try me?”

Mikleo lets out a breath. “Okay, so I turned the knob and it broke, and water started spraying everywhere. I’m drenched, right now, actually, the carpet’s really wet too, but you know that-- I was just so overwhelmed and tired and fed up and I wanted it to stop. And then it _did_.”

Sorey frowns. “That… could be chance, right?”

“I can’t think of anything else; can you?”

Sorey lays there for a moment, thinking. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s half-delirious with lack of sleep, but after a few seconds he has to stifle a giggle. “I’m telling you, it’s probably a ghost-”

“Sorey!”

“Sorry,” Sorey laughs. “But I guess I wouldn’t worry about it right now. It’s really late, Mik, go to bed. It’ll make more sense in the morning and you can get a plumber to look at everything.” He yawns, feeling the tiredness he had been pushing away finally hook its claws into him. “We’ve got school tomorrow.” _And a math test I was going to study for tomorrow morning,_ he thinks. _Shit._

“I guess,” says Mikleo, resigned. “This is all just so weird… and kind of creepy, if I’m being honest.” Sorey can hear the exhaustion and exasperation in his voice. “I guess I’ll change and go back to bed.”

“Yeah,” says Sorey through another yawn, “good idea. Hope nothing else happens tonight.” It’s half because he doesn’t want Mikleo to get worried again, half because as much as he loves Mikleo, he loves sleep about an equal amount. And that’s saying a lot.

“Me too,” says Mikleo ruefully. “Well, sorry to wake you up. Thanks for letting me freak out on you.”

“No problem,” says Sorey distantly, his mind already starting to wander, now that the crisis is over. His eyes are aching and heavy, he’s only half aware of the words coming out of his mouth. “Love you. Call me anytime.”

Mikleo pauses. “Goodnight, Sorey,” he says finally, and even through a haze of tiredness, Sorey can still tell that his voice has a smile behind it. “I, um- love- sleep well.”

“G’night, Mik. Sleep well too.”

It doesn’t take him long after that to fall asleep.

 

…

 

Sorey wakes up with his alarm at 7 a.m., hits snooze, and falls back asleep.

 

....

 

Some indiscriminate amount of time later, he surfaces from unconsciousness and begins to feel a little uneasy. The bed is soft and warm and it would be very, very easy to ignore the nagging feeling and let sleep pull him back under, but something about this situation is too good to be true. He almost doesn’t feel tired enough, and he would have thought that the alarm would have woken him up again by now.

 _Okay, I probably hit snooze again and then fell asleep and forgot about it,_ he thinks. It’s been what, maybe ten or twenty minutes? He’s still tired from talking with Mikleo last night.

Sorey glances groggily at the clock.

7:58 a.m.

For a second he just stares at the numbers blankly, frozen with shock and disappointment with himself and resignation that he’s just going to have to wing his test. The house is quiet downstairs; his mom has left for work already, and the silence except for the rushing of the heating is almost unsettling.

“Fuck,” he breathes, and scrambles from the bed.

He grabs the most convenient clothes in his closet and tugs them on while he hops down the stairs, hoping his mom left him something for breakfast. The house is still cold from when they turned the heat down the night before, and Sorey shiver-dances his way across the floor in bare feet. Turns out there’s no breakfast already made this morning, just a note that tells him to use up the stale bread, so Sorey pops two pieces in the toaster and hurries to the bathroom.

His hair is a mess, as usual, and running a comb through it doesn’t help much. Sorey brushes his teeth, then washes his face with cold water because it was taking too long to heat up. He’s back in the dining room, shoving homework into his backpack, when he hears the toast pop up.

It’s 8:08. The bus comes at 8:10, and the stop is about fifty feet away from his house, and there’s a chance that it’ll be late, anyway. Sorey lets out a breath--he might not have to show up on Sergei’s doorstep and beg for a ride, which continues to be a thoroughly humiliating experience no matter how many times he’s done it. Sergei is the only other person on his street who’s in high school, and while Sorey does have the ability to drive, his mom needs the car to get to work. He doesn’t even really mind the weird seventies music Sergei has playing 24/7 from his car radio, it’s just that his expression is always an esteem-shattering mixture of pity and concealed exasperation when he opens the door to see Sorey standing with his backpack on his front porch.

Sorey grabs the toast, jams his shoes on his feet, and leaves the house--the doorknob is painfully cold against his hands. He hunches against the wind and walks to the bus stop as quickly as he can. He had apparently underestimated the weather, because after about a minute, he’s miserable and shivering in his jeans and sweatshirt. He’s heard somewhere that jeans make you colder, but his sweatpants had been dirty. What else was he supposed to wear? Leggings?

 _Would Mikleo look good in leggings?_ his mind supplies. He entertains the thought for a moment--Mikleo does have nice legs. But he can’t help imagining the rest of the outfit, too: for some reason he thinks of a quilted vest and a Vineyard Vines t-shirt. _Nah_ , he decides, _that’s too weird. You’re being weird._

He’s had that thought a lot, lately.

A few minutes later and Sorey is honestly just about ready to cry from how cold he is. His ears are aching and the wind is relentless, and every breath he takes feels like shards of ice stabbing his lungs. He pulls out his phone with stiff fingers and checks the time: 8:15. True, the bus is sometimes a lot later than this, but Sergei is starting to sound like an okay alternative to freezing his ass off for any longer. A particularly strong gust of wind pushes him to one side, and Sorey, legs pressed together and ankles crossed in attempt to conserve body heat, stumbles and trips over his own feet.

For a few moments he just lays there in the cold grass, staring into the cloudy sky and accepting his fate, and that’s when he hears a laugh, half-snorted, carried over on the wind. Sorey freezes, acutely aware of the cold press of the ground and the straps of his backpack digging into his shoulders. It sounds like Mikleo’s laugh.

Slowly, without getting up, he cranes his neck to look behind him. A figure, appropriately bundled against the cold, is walking towards him from about a block away. It’s a little hard to see--Sorey realizes with a start that he had forgotten to put in his contacts--but the hair is unmistakable, and he sees the Rulay family Honda parked down the street. It _is_ Mikleo.

“Mikleoooo,” he calls pathetically, “help me.”

He can see Mikleo quicken his pace, and he thinks his mouth might have moved, but his words are lost in an unhelpful gust of wind. Sorey shrugs and rests his head against the backpack. He’s not entirely sure why he’s still on the ground; maybe it’s some subconscious, convoluted way of getting Mikleo’s attention.

A few words fade in: “Help yourself, you big baby.”

Sorey snorts and rolls to his feet, just in time to greet Mikleo, who’s arrived at the bus stop. “Mik. Hey.”

“Hey,” echoes Mikleo, his eyebrows half-raised in a way that means he knows something that Sorey doesn’t. Sorey frowns at him in return. “Uh, having a good time waiting for the bus?”

He had been a few seconds away from crying on the ground earlier, but Sorey just rolls his eyes. “It’s like fifteen degrees, what does it look like?”

Mikleo hesitates, then huffs--it’s his mom friend side taking over. “If you knew that, why didn’t you put on a jacket?” The concerned, exasperated tone is a break from his smug demeanor, but Mikleo quickly regains control. “But anyway. Right, it’s cold. And looks like there’s no one else here, either…”

“Mik, why are you here?” Sorey interrupts, “Shouldn’t you be driving to school?”

“Sorey.” Now a smile is pulling at the corners of Mikleo’s mouth, even though he presses his lips together in an attempt to stop it. “Seriously?”

“What?” Sorey cries, throwing up his hands. “I’m cold, I just want to get on the bus and go to school and fail the math test I forgot to study for; I don’t know why you’re here and I hope your plumbing thing worked out but you could probably just tell me before first period-”

“Sorey, they cancelled school.” Mikleo’s still determinedly trying to suppress his smile, and failing more and more with every second. “You know, because…” The humor leaves his face suddenly. “Wait, have you not heard? About anything?”

Sorey frowns. “There’s something going on?”

“ _Something?_ ” Mikleo laughs, the same half-hysterical one from their phone conversation before. “Uh, I would say that’s a bit of an understatement.” Sorey’s face must still be puzzled, because Mikleo’s expression sobers further. “You really haven’t heard.”

“I haven’t had time to check the news or anything, I woke up late.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” says Mikleo. “And of course you just _happened_ to wake up late on probably the most important morning of your life, you really have the best luck-”

“Mik, will you tell me what’s going on?”

“Sorry.” Mikleo rubs a hand over his face. “There isn’t really an easy way to put it. But, uh… it sounds unbelievable, but we all have- something like superpowers now.”

Sorey’s frown deepens. “C’mon, seriously. I’m worried. Was there a natural disaster or something?”

“No, I’m being serious.” Mikleo does, indeed, look completely sincere. “You know the water last night? That wasn’t a plumbing issue. That was _me._ ”

There’s a very long pause, in which Sorey struggles between his complete trust in Mikleo and the fact that there’s no such thing as superpowers in real life. He knows for a fact that the confusion is showing on his face, because Mikleo is giving him a sort of warm half-smile. Mikleo enjoys knowing more than him.

It makes his head hurt a lot less if he just tries not to think about it. “Okay,” he says finally. “Okay. Cool. Can we go inside, though? Because I am, literally I think, freezing my ass off.”

Mikleo snorts and unwinds the scarf from his neck; wraps it clumsily around Sorey’s own. It’s warm from his body heat and it smells like him, which is a bizarre combination of lavender and rain. It’s not bizarre because the scents smell weird together--Sorey loves the combination--but because he has no idea how Mikleo has the ability to smell like an actual summer downpour. He’ll have to look at his three bottles of body wash more carefully when he goes over to his house, next time.

“Sure thing,” Mikleo says wryly. Out of the corner of his mouth he mutters, “Baby.” Sorey knows it’s a reference to the way he had laid on the ground until Mikleo got there to help him, but he has to fight really, really hard to keep the twisty feelings out of his stomach. Weidly, there’s also a burning itch that crops up all over his skin, annoying enough that he surreptitiously scratches as much as he can without looking too weird. Both feelings aren’t going away, despite his best efforts.

 _Stop pining,_ he tells himself sharply, _you definitely have bigger things to worry about._

They speed walk to the house and Sorey unlocks the door with stiff, white fingers. It had felt cold compared to the warmth of his bed when he had gotten up about half an hour ago, but now, in contrast to the weather outside, it’s extravagantly warm. The tips of Sorey’s fingers burn with it.

Mikleo sheds his coat and hangs it on the coatrack--the second hook, reserved for him. Sorey has an identical spot in the Rulay household. Underneath the coat, Mikleo’s wearing a cream-colored sweater over a button-down. He’s always fashionable, so Sorey’s gotten used to feeling extremely underdressed all the time, but he’s still glad that the clothes he had pulled from his closet in a hurry were the slightly nicer ones.

Mikleo frowns at a ketchup stain that dots the capital “i” of his Marlind University sweatshirt, and takes his scarf back. “If you don’t believe me, just check the news,” he says.

“I believe you,” says Sorey, but he takes out his phone, anyway. “How did you know school was cancelled?” he asks, as he waits for the local news page to load. “Did they send a call or something?”

“Yeah, and I saw on twitter,” says Mikleo.

Sorey snorts. “I think you’re the only person in the world who follows our school’s twitter account.”

“Okay, it has like three hundred other followers, including Alisha and Zaveid.”

“Of course they do,” Sorey sighs. “Wait, actually, Zaveid’s a surprise. I didn’t know he had twitter.” The loading bar of the news app is caught somewhere around ninety percent. His house’s wifi is so shitty that Sorey wonders if switching to data would make it load faster.

“Don’t you follow each other?”

“I don’t know,” says Sorey, “maybe I just never see him on my feed? I never would have thought that he would follow the school account. That’s funny, though.”

The loading bar finally inches to completion, and after a moment of sitting there fully loaded, articles pop up on his screen. The first one is labeled ‘Breaking News’ at the top, and in bold black typeface, ‘Unnatural Phenomena Continues to Spread’. There is no picture attached.

Sorey swallows and glances up at Mikleo, who meets his gaze and smiles just slightly, half comforting and half ‘I told you so’. His cheeks are flushed from the cold. He looks nice. Sorey averts his gaze to his phone quickly and taps on the article.

‘Updated 8:24 a.m. ET: A phenomena, which has quickly made itself known to billions, is continuing to spread with the emergence of daylight around the world. This mysterious power manifests as various superhuman capabilities of all kinds. Most daily life has ground to a halt as people stay indoors to keep safe. The National Health Service advises people to stay calm, especially if they are unaware of what manifestation of power they have, since all superhuman capabilities seem to be triggered by a strong emotion--the type of which varies from person to person. The cause of this phenomena is still unknown.’

Sorey takes a breath. “Oh boy.”

Then he takes an even deeper breath. “Oh _boy, what’s my mom doing?_ ”

“She went in today?” asks Mikleo, surprised. “Or, well, I guess the emergency room is an ‘essential service’ or something.”

“They’re probably really busy today too,” says Sorey, “because of all the accidents with people's... uh, superpowers. I mean, not like the emergency room isn’t always busy, but they probably need her. I hope she’s okay.” He sighs, but then brightens: “Hey, Mik, that means we have the house to ourselves all day! We should do something.”

“Mm,” says Mikleo. “True, but…”

He’s using a sort of noncommittal tone. Sorey frowns. “But…?”

“We do have a math test… tomorrow, probably…”

“Ugh, we can study for that later!” Sorey says. “You just got the power to control water and all you want to do is math homework? Let’s do history, if we have to do anything.”

“I’m just _saying_ ,” says Mikleo defensively. “I can’t exactly water magic my way out of inverse trig functions.”

“But how much studying do you really have to do for math?” Sorey edges towards the kitchen, Mikleo edges forward with him. “It’s all, like, practice problems. Hands-on learning.”

“That’s what I was planning to do.”

“Okay, but what’s wrong with some quality time with,” Sorey gestures to himself with a wink, “yours truly?”

“I’m not saying we have to study all day, just that it would probably be a good idea at some point, and if we start playing video games or something we’re never going to stop-” Mikleo breaks off as Sorey reaches the kitchen and goes for the upper-left cabinet--the cereal cabinet. “Did you not eat breakfast?”

“Oh,” says Sorey distantly, and reaches into his hoodie pocket, where the two pieces of toast had been nestling. They’re sad and hard from the freezing air outside, but should be good enough with a little reheating.

Mikleo makes a face. “You’re probably one of the most disgusting people I’ve ever met. Don’t you get ants or something?”

Sorey brushes the pocket out over the sink. “Not if I do this.” Another look at Mikleo’s disgusted expression, and he snickers. “I’m not usually this bad, okay? I just woke up late today, I was in a rush.”

The disgust changes to something more like guilt. “Sorry about keeping you up last night.”

“Not a problem,” Sorey sings, turning to the cabinet for cereal. “Seriously, call me anytime. I’d much rather you call me and keep me up then sit there and panic on your own.” He pulls out a box and pops open the top, and turns to Mikleo, who’s staring at the counter with an ambiguous expression and slightly flushed cheeks. “What?”

Mikleo startles. “Nothing. You’re a nice person, Sorey. What did you need?”

Sorey blinks at the seemingly unrelated string of words. “Can you get me a bowl?”

Mikleo brings two, and then goes to the fridge for milk. “Thanks,” says Sorey distantly when he hands the jug to him, and unscrews the cap and pours it into the empty bowl.

The sound that comes out of Mikleo’s mouth is akin to someone stepping simultaneously in dog poop and a hornet’s nest barefoot. “Sorey, I am _divorcing_ you,” he says. “Who taught you that? Zaveid? Rose?”

“I just wanted to try it,” says Sorey, watching the smooth, twisting stream of milk spill into the bowl. He has the gallon jug just barely tipped over, so it fills slowly. “Do you think that’s enough?”

“I don’t know, I’m not a heathen,” Mikleo snaps, although there’s humor behind it. He grabs the box of cereal and shakes it into his bowl, frowning when a few of them scatter on the floor. “Ugh, sorry. I’ll clean it up.”

Sorey pours Mikleo’s milk for him while Mikleo picks up the fallen cereal, and then shakes a few honey nut cheerios into his own bowl. They float until Sorey pours more on top of them, and by then Mikleo is back.

“Thanks,” Mikleo says offhandedly, in regards to the cereal. “Well, how did ‘milk first’ turn out?”

“Kinda weird,” says Sorey, “but not that bad. It all tastes the same in the end, anyways.” He opens the silverware drawer and digs around for spoons.

Mikleo scoffs. “What’s next? Those mixed jars of peanut butter and jelly? Orange juice after brushing your teeth?”

“Okay, orange juice after brushing your teeth isn’t that bad,” says Sorey. “And I don’t have any beef with the peanut butter and jelly jars either. It’s convenient. Like, you don’t have to spread the peanut butter on one slice and the jelly on the other, you could just put the mixture on one side and stick the other piece of bread on top.”

“The separate jam slice and peanut butter slice is what makes it good, though.”

“But how important is it really? You’re not going to taste it when you eat the sandwich.”

“You definitely taste it! And it’s just what people do, there’s a reason we make PB&J the traditional way-”

“But is a tiny difference in texture or whatever worth sacrificing convenience for-”

“I’m not saying that you should _always_ used the combined stuff, just that it’s not completely irredeemable.”

There’s a moment of silence and then Mikleo shrugs and says, “This is a stupid conversation,” which means he’s not backing down from his position, but Sorey’s technically won this round.

He has a bite of cereal as his prize, and takes his bowl and walks from the kitchen. He’s suddenly more aware of all the sources of water in his house--the pipes, the sink, the milk. The article said that the superhuman abilities were activated by certain kind of strong emotion, so Sorey figures he’d better try and keep them both as calm as possible.

Briefly, he wonders what his own power is. The ability to control water is really fitting for Mikleo, but he’s guessing that not all powers fit their owners. Rose and Alisha likened him to a teddy bear once--he wonders what power that would give him. Telekinesis, but only with stuffed animals? The ability to actually transform into a giant stuffed bear? Anything he comes up with is ridiculous. He wonders why he hadn’t thought about the whole issue before, but the answer comes to him almost before his mind completes the question: he’s not sure he really wants to know.

But there’s also a tiny itch in the back of his mind that he’s trying really hard to ignore.

God, it’s all so bizarre: superhuman powers for everyone on Earth. But like he said earlier, Sorey’s an easygoing person, and he figures he’s taking it all in stride pretty well, considering the circumstances. What else can they do, really, besides try and act like everything's normal?

“Are you going to your room?” Mikleo trails behind him, spooning cereal into his mouth. “We’re playing video games now, aren’t we?” With the tone of his voice, it’s more of a grudging acceptance.

“Unless you have some _studying_ to do, yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”

“You know I’m not going to study without you,” says Mikleo, rolling his eyes. “You’re such a bad influence. Fine, but only if we play Mario Kart.”

“Uh, but you always win at Mario Kart.”

“Damn, Sorey, I thought you knew me better.” Mikleo presses a hand to his chest in mock-hurt. “Of course I always win. It’s why I want to play.”

Sorey thinks of how many times he’s gotten a bony elbow in the side to keep him from dodging a shell. “You do like winning,” he mutters.

“Yeah, I do. It’s why I hang around you so much.”

“Ooh.” This time Sorey is the one to pretend to be offended. “That’s cold.”

A beat of silence, and then Mikleo snickers, and Sorey is helpless to stop his own laughter in return. It’s 8:30 on a sunny morning and school’s been cancelled and even though the world is literally going to shit right outside his front door, Mikleo’s staying over for the day.

So all in all, not bad.

 

…

 

“What the fuck?” Mikleo hisses, swerving in a last-ditch attempt to avoid the blue shell Sorey had lobbed at him, but to no avail-- he spins up in a blue explosion and moves back to third. “Sorey, what the fuck.”

Sorey, holding a steady position in tenth place, just shrugs. “I had the shell. You were in first. It’s just how life goes.”

“I was in first by like- so far, and you just had to use-” he stops to curse vehemently as Princess Peach and Yoshi both pass him. “Fuck you!” His grip on the controller is white-knuckled.

“Mik, chill,” says Sorey, still having a fine time cruising at the tail end of the pack, watching the animated scenery go by, “They’re not even real people. It’s just the AI.”

“It just makes it even more annoying,” says Mikleo, through what sounds like gritted teeth. His eyes are fixed on the screen, narrowed with determination. “Fuck the AI. Fuck _Yoshi_. Yoshi can go die in a ditch somewhere. He’s no longer my favorite.”

Watching Mikleo get worked up over Mario Kart is one of Sorey’s more entertaining pastimes, but he’s struck with a sudden thought: “Uh, hey, Mikleo. What emotion triggers your...ability? Power? The water thing.”

Mikleo is silent for a few seconds, close to edging his way back into first. When he finally pulls ahead, he shrugs, letting some of the tension go out of his shoulders. “Frustration, I think, or exasperation. Something along those lines.”

“Yeah,” says Sorey, “that’s kind of what I thought, so- no offense, but I really like my hot water system just the way it is. Like, without ice or broken pipes or any of what went down at your house last night.”

Mikleo’s only half-listening to him. He sails past the finish line, solidly in first, and his face glows with satisfaction. “Thank god,” he says, “I was ready to stab someone. Preferably Yoshi.” He turns to Sorey. “Sorry, what?”

“Maybe we should take a break,” Sorey paraphrases.

He sees Mikleo hesitate. After a few wins he gets hooked and can’t stop until he wins again, sort of like a gambler, now that Sorey thinks about it. He can predict what Mikleo’s going to say: just one more race.

Mikleo opens his mouth. “Just-”

“Yeah, I don’t want you messing with the plumbing in my house,” says Sorey. “You wanted to study, right? Let’s study.”

Mikleo lowers the controller, pauses. “Why is it that we never want to study at the same time?”

“You were the one pushing it earlier!”

“That was _before_ twelve rounds of Mario Kart, Sorey, we both knew this was going to happen. It’s addicting.”

“We don’t have to stop playing video games,” says Sorey weakly, “I just don’t want you to accidentally flood the bathroom.”

Mikleo sighs. “You’re probably right.” A sideways glance at Sorey. “You _did_ just come in last place twelve times in a row. We should give your ego a break.” He sets down the controller and stretches against the side of Sorey’s bed where he had been leaning, letting his head fall back into the patch of sunlight coming through the window. His throat is exposed, jawline sharp and elegant against his neck.

Sorey swallows. He forces himself to look away. The thoughts come in quick succession this time: first, _holy shit he’s so attractive,_ accompanied by the overwhelming urge to press his lips to Mikleo’s jaw. Second, _shut the fuck up and stop being creepy_ , accompanied by the emotional equivalent of smacking himself on the wrist.

The itchy feeling comes back, stronger, this time.

 _Good lord,_ Sorey thinks. _I know what this is._

“Bathroom,” he says quickly, trying to make his exit from the room look as normal and dignified as he can with skin that itches so much it’s like it’s on fire. He waddles, stiff-legged, to the bathroom, closes the door, and sits down on the toilet. The cool tile feels good against the soles of his feet.

Two facts that he’s been trying very hard to ignore, and up until now has had a pretty good time doing so: one, that his power is activated by feelings of attraction, and two, he has the most hopeless, embarrassing, awkward crush he’s ever experienced in his life--on Mikleo.

Sorey lets his head drop into his hands and closes his eyes. The fluid arch from Mikelo’s spine to the tips of his interlaced fingers as he stretched is burned into his mind. Against his will, he remembers the soft skin of Mikleo’s hip, exposed from where his shirt had ridden up. His skin is pale, and delicate. He bruises easily. He blushes easily. He would show hickeys easily- and that’s a path that Sorey _really_ doesn’t want to go down on right at this moment.

For a moment earlier the itching had subsided, but now his brain helpfully supplies him with a wave of shame and _you always knew he was pretty, why can’t you handle it now?_ and it returns full force.

Distantly, he can hear the sounds of another game of Mario Kart being started up. Mikleo must be racing alone. Sorey imagines him hunched over, knees drawn to his chest, face tight with concentration. He hasn’t really bothered to style his hair today, and although his bangs always retain some degree of their characteristic swoop, it’s more loose and messy than usual. Sorey really likes it. He wants to run his hands through it--he knows how soft it is.

Sorey opens his eyes and finds himself floating several inches off of the toilet seat.

He’s shocked enough to gasp, and for a moment he tenses, bracing himself for a fall, but it never comes. He, along with the ends of the headphones tucked into the pocket of his sweatshirt, are suspended in midair, drifting just slightly towards the right.

So that’s what it is. Crushes, and floating. And if he tries to suppress it, uncontrollable itching.

He has the shittiest luck in the world.

Sorey grabs onto the back of the toilet and extends his legs down until he’s in a standing position, although his feet still hover at least a foot off the ground. Bad idea. The lid on the tank of the toilet starts to float too, rising until it’s about level with Sorey’s belly button. Sorey pushes it down, but it won’t stay put--it keeps bouncing coming back up, and attempting to sit on it doesn’t have any effect, since he’s also weightless.

Sorey holds it instead, figuring that when he comes down (he has to, sometime), he’d better make sure it doesn’t fall to the floor. Being weightless has its perks, since unlike flight or anything like that, he doesn’t really need to control it. Sorey estimates that it’s been about five minutes, though, and he’s ready to go back to his room. He’s careful not to touch the wall, because theoretically he thinks he could probably float the whole house by accident. That would be fun to explain: ‘Oh, sorry mom, I accidentally uprooted the house and caused us thousands of dollars in damage because I couldn’t control my stupid crush on my best friend.’

The bottom goes out of his stomach, and Sorey thumps to the ground, glancing off of the side of the toilet as he goes. He yelps. His tailbone feels bruised, but at least the toilet tank lid is safe. The itching in his skin is back, but after a couple of seconds, it fades until he can barely notice it.

The sound of the race cuts off in Sorey’s room. “Uh, you okay?” Mikleo calls.

Sorey struggles to his feet with the heavy porcelain lid. “I’m fine,” he says, keeping his voice as casual as he can, “just tripped. And fell.”

He can hear Mikleo’s snort even through the closed door. “Be careful.”

“I am,” he says, as he replaces the lid of the toilet tank. It makes a lot more ceramic scraping and clanking than he’d like, but he hopes that Mikleo won’t hear him over the noise of his game. He flushes the toilet to keep up pretense, washes his hands, and limps back into his room.

Mikleo’s won, again. He glances up at Sorey, the light happening to catch and glow in his eyes in a way that convinces Sorey that nature must really, really hate him right now. His gaze zeroes in on Sorey’s awkward gait.

“Yikes. Bad fall?”

“Oh.” Sorey laughs nervously, tries not to rub his tailbone. “Yeah, I guess. I just, um, there was a towel that must’ve fallen on the ground or something. That I wasn’t expecting.”

Mikleo quirks an eyebrow, but his smile has nothing but fondness behind it. “Obviously.” He sets down his controller and rolls his shoulders. “You were probably right, I should stop getting worked up over Mario Kart. What should we do?”

Mikleo had been right, earlier, in saying they needed to study, but Sorey’s not going to admit that. “Movie?” he suggests.

Mikleo hesitates. “What kind of movie?”

“I don’t know, whatever’s on Netflix.”

“So like, a recent one? Something made in this century?”

“You know… whatever they have.”

“You want to watch old samurai movies, don’t you.”

“I said whatever’s on Netflix!” says Sorey. Then, softer, he adds, “there are a lot of samurai movies on Netflix.”

Mikleo makes a huffy noise, somewhere between a sigh and a rueful laugh. “I mean, nothing against old samurai movies,” he says, “but I’m pretty sure we’ve seen all of the ones on Netflix. I’m pretty sure we’ve seen all the ones to have ever been made, actually. Twice.”

“We have not!” Sorey protests, “I can think of like, eight right now that I haven’t seen yet-”

“Just pull up Netflix and we can negotiate,” says Mikleo. He unplugs his controller and bundles the wire neatly around it, sets it on top of the Wii, turns it off. He turns to Sorey. “Well?”

They file downstairs, and Sorey grabs the remote and the blanket off of the back of the couch and turns on the TV. He’s half hoping Mikleo will ask to share it as he flops on the couch and wraps the blanket around him, but instead Mikleo settles a comfortable distance away, sitting cross-legged and completely oblivious to Sorey’s burning desire to cuddle. Sorey pulls up Netflix and scrolls through the recommended shows--it’s a whole lot of samurai movies and documentaries.

“Do they have any new documentaries?” Mikleo asks. “I think I saw something about the architecture of some newly-discovered temples in Greece, it looked good. Discovery Channel.”

Mikleo and himself are the only people Sorey knows who follow the release of new archeology documentaries like film critics do blockbusters. It’s unapologetically nerdy, but the rush of seeing a really good new documentary is too good to risk even the chance of missing one. “What’s it called?”

“I don’t know,” says Mikleo, “can’t you sort it by release date, though?”

Sorey navigates to the documentaries. “Don’t you want to watch something with action? Sword fights? Cheesy, badly-translated dialogue?”

Mikleo shoots him a look. “If you want that, we should watch anime.” He considers. “They have Hunter x Hunter through episode… at least episode 100.”

“I’ll come back to Hunter x Hunter when Togashi does,” says Sorey, scrolling through the documentaries. “Okay, the newest one’s the one about vikings, the one we watched last weekend, so I don’t think they have it.”

“We should watch Planet Earth.”

Sorey shivers. “Too tense.”

“What, are the predator-prey chase scenes too much for you? Always want the fluffy bunny to live to see another day?” Sorey opens his mouth, but Mikleo cuts him off. “Wait, of course you do.” He snickers. “I remember one time when you almost cried because a plant died.”

“It was a cute plant!” Sorey protests. “It’s just hard to see the cold truth of nature. The world is a tough place, y’know?”

“Yeah, but like... a plant.”

“Okay, you can’t stand zombies of any kind, so I don’t see your point-”

Mikleo immediately goes on the defensive, which means they get off of the topic of Sorey’s embarrassing sensitivity to nature documentaries, which is exactly what he wants. “There’s a significant difference between a plant and zombies, Sorey!”

“But you don’t even like the cheesy kind-”

“It’s disturbing!”

“You walked out of the theater when Alisha and you and I went to see World War Z.”

“Because it was a terrifying movie, don’t try to deny it-- and someone forgot to mention what _exactly it was that Z stood for-_ ”

Sorey opens his mouth, then closes it, because Mikleo’s moved a lot closer during their argument and his face is only a few inches away from Sorey’s own, and there’s a little thought wiggling around in the back of his mind that says _you could kiss him right now_ that he needs to devote all his energy to ignoring.

Mikleo frowns. “What?” His eyes flick down for a second, and he flushes self-consciously. He doesn’t move away.

Sorey has enough of a sense of self-preservation to successfully convince himself that Mikleo was _not_ looking at his lips just then. “Nothing,” he says, leaning away as surreptitiously as he can, only breathing again once Mikleo does the same.

They end up on the first episode of a documentary series about the history of art theft that Sorey’s only half paying attention to. He’s more interested in watching the side of Mikleo’s face, and his various subtle expressions as the narrator goes the usual hyper-dramatic motions that all televised documentaries seem to include.

After a few minutes of long, slow pans over pieces of artwork that neither of them have any interest in, Mikleo turns away from the TV. “Hey,” he says offhandedly, “have you figured out what your power is yet? I just assumed you hadn’t, but- I shouldn’t have assumed.”

Sorey’s mind goes completely, desperately blank. He’s torn between saying no and yes: no because if he does tell him then Mikleo might ask what emotion triggers it, and then he’ll have to tell him that it’s attraction, and then when he inevitably starts to float when Mikleo sits a little too close or stretches again or lets his head fall against Sorey’s shoulder the way he does sometimes during long gaming sessions, the secret will be out and Sorey might as well just fling himself into the sun at that point. If he says yes, though, at least he won’t have to lie. Sorey can do a fair number of things in life, but lying is one hundred percent not one of them; and Mikleo’s better at picking up on it than most.

“Uhhhhhhhh,” he says, “y- no.”

“Y’know?” Mikleo echoes, giving him a confused sort of smile. “If I knew I wouldn’t be asking you, Sorey.”

Fuck. His time is running out and he’s too panicked to think straight.

For a moment the rush of his thoughts stops for a second as he suppresses a giggle: Ha. ‘Straight’. He has a hard time thinking ‘straight’ whenever he’s around Mikleo-

Okay, fuck, time. Mikleo’s still waiting for him to respond. “Y- yeah,” he blurts. “Yes. Yeah, I have.”

Wrong answer.

Mikleo quirks an eyebrow. “You sure about that? Because it doesn’t sound like it.”

“I have!” says Sorey. No backing out now. “It’s anti-gravity. I found out while I was in the bathroom earlier.”

Now Mikleo’s expression is incredulous. “And you didn’t tell me? Sorey, why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

“U- uh,” says Sorey, “you know, that’s a really good- really valid point, and I understand if you’re hurt, and I’m really sorry about that, I didn’t mean to hurt you I really didn’t, I was just- there were some things going on, and- and I’m sorry, I didn’t…” Mikleo lets him trail off weakly, and Sorey swallows, hard. “Sorry, Mik.”

Mikleo gives him a weird look--eyes narrowed, brows drawn together in confusion, lips thin. “What’s going on?” he asks.

“Haha,” says Sorey--says the actual syllables ‘ha’ and ‘ha’ and that’s when he realizes the extent to which he’s screwed. He’s never told a decent lie in his life; now is definitely not an exception. He’s run out of things to say, so he just stays silent, sweating and hoping the pain and regret doesn’t show on his face.

Mikleo’s expression changes from confused to upset. Hurt, even. Sorey immediately feels a wave of regret, so strong it’s like a punch to his stomach. He had never, ever intended to make Mikleo feel bad.

Mikleo opens his mouth, but he doesn’t have to speak for Sorey to start trying to apologize. “Mik, I’m so sorry, it’s not that I don’t trust you or anything like that it’s just that I have a- some issues that I have to get over and it’s one hundred percent not your fault or anything to do with you- wait that’s not true but it’s not your-”

“Sorey,” Mikleo interrupts, “I’m not that upset that you didn’t tell me, just that-” he scrabbles for the remote among the folds of blankets in Sorey’s lap--Sorey successfully swallows down a squeak--and pauses the documentary. “I’m just upset that you’re- something’s obviously bothering you, and I wish-” He runs a hand through his hair. “Ugh. You can tell me anything, right? And you know I’ll still- you know I won’t judge.”

“Thanks,” says Sorey. “I know. I trust you.”

Mikleo gives him a look: _so?_ “Sorey, what’s wrong?”

Sorey knows he’s making a weird face as he presses his lips together and shakes his head. “This is like, the one thing I can’t tell you. Literally the only one, I promise, because I know that we can talk about anything and I love that but-” He’s trying too hard to make up for the fact that he just can’t tell Mikleo what’s going on. “Ask me something else?”

“Hey Sorey, what’s bothering you?”

“I said ask something else, not just reword the question.”

Mikleo sighs. “I was serious, you know. Even though you think it’s something that you can’t tell me, I promise I won’t be upset. I promise it won’t change anything, okay?”

It’s hard to keep things the same as they always were when you find out that your best friend has a crush on you, no matter how hard you try. “Uh, yeah,” says Sorey, “I think that would be a great conversation to have but I really- bathroom-” He edges from the couch, letting the blanket drop to the floor.

“Sorey!” Mikleo’s hand snakes out to grab his wrist, tethering him to the couch--to this situation, unfortunately. “Just tell me. I promise it’ll be fine.”

Despite everything that’s going on, Mikleo’s hand feels soft and warm and comforting. Sorey wonders how it would feel like clasped in his own. Hand holding is really nice--he wonders if Mikleo would smile and squeeze his hand back. He wants to find out.

He also feels himself floating, slowly, off of the ground. Shit.

“It won’t be fine,” says Sorey quickly, tugs his hand out of Mikleo’s grasp, and escapes.

 

…

 

“Sorey!” Mikleo bangs on the door a few times for good measure. “Sorey, you can’t just run away to the bathroom every time I want to have a meaningful conversation!”

Sorey wonders if drowning himself in the toilet is a realistic option at this point. Pros: drowning himself in the toilet, not facing Mikleo. Cons: there would be toilet water on his face, and death is, unfortunately, permanent.

“I’m not running away,” he says, quietly. Petulantly.

“Then why is the door locked, smartass?”

“It’s my house! I can do what I want!”

“Sorey, please just let me in,” says Mikelo. “I know you’re not actually going to the bathroom.”

“Yeah? Maybe I’m just having a really hard time taking a shit, you don’t know-”

“Stop being childish,” says Mikleo. “Can we talk, like, reasonably? For once?”

“Um, okay, ‘for once’, like we haven’t had reasonable, adult conversations before-”

“That’s not what I meant,” Mikleo sighs. Sorey hears the swish and thump as he slides down the door, and presumably, sits on the ground leaning against it. “Sorey, come on. Just let me in.”

“Can we just forget about this? Please.” There’s a very slim chance that Mikleo will be willing to drop it, but it’s still worth a shot. Anything is worth a shot, at this point.

“You’re acting so weird.” says Mikleo, a denial if there ever was one. “Is there really something so secret that you can’t tell me? We tell each other everything.”

Sorey’s been thinking, but there’s just no way to get himself out of this, save an emergency or some freak accident that will distract Mikleo. The window’s not high enough off the ground for him to break an ankle or anything, although he could feign an accident in the bathroom. That he slipped on the tile or something.

But he’s a terrible liar. There’s no way out of the grave he’s dug himself into.

For a tiny, tiny moment he considers just telling Mikleo everything. Maybe it wouldn’t change anything between them. Maybe Mikleo would be able to pretend that there was nothing more to their casual physical intimacy, all the little touches and closeness that they had come to incorporate into their normal interactions. There _wasn’t_ anything more to it--at least not for him.

But who is he kidding. Any interaction at all between them would probably be ruined if he knew. Sorey’s too selfish to give that up.

“Sorey,” Mikleo calls outside the door, banging it with the palm of his hand. “Let me in.” More banging.

“I’m not opening the door until you leave.”

“And I’m not going away until you open the door! What a coincidence.” He still hasn’t stopped banging on the door. “So-rey,” he sings, “open the door.”

“I’m not going to! Just give up already!”

“I can sit here all day, or you can be reasonable and open the door and talk to me like the kind, responsible person you are.”

Sorey doesn’t deign that with a response. He’s perched on the sink counter, staring at the door as if he could see through it to Mikleo sitting on the other side. He wishes he could, so he could see when Mikleo finally leaves, because he’s in this for the long run. He’ll stick it out for hours if he has to, if it means avoiding confrontation.

Silence on Mikleo’s end. Finally, his voice from the other side of the door: “Fine. I’ll be in the living room if you want to talk.” There’s a rustling noise as he stands, and Sorey hears footsteps receding from the door. He lets out a breath--he can’t believe Mikleo actually gave up. There’s a limit to how stubborn anyone can be, he guesses.

Sorey waits for at least five minutes, just to be sure that Mikleo is really gone. That time is a really great opportunity to take some quiet moments to think about how he’s going to better hide his massive crush. _The ogling from a distance has to stop,_ he decides. And he either has to embrace the casual touches and pretend like he doesn’t care, or stop them altogether--no being weird and awkward about it. And-- he doesn’t really have a third point. He doesn’t really have a plan in general.

He’s really screwed himself over an incredible amount. Sorey rubs his hands over his face, sighs, does his best to accept it. He opens the door, dreading the awkward return to the living room and already steeling himself for Mikleo’s barrage of questions there-

Mikleo tumbles into the bathroom with an undeniably triumphant look in his eyes. Sorey yelps and scrambles to close the door, but it’s too late--Mikleo’s already in and hurrying to stand. “Ha,” he says.

“Fuck,” says Sorey. He considers pushing Mikleo out, but in a battle of strength, they’re probably about evenly matched. There’s no guarantee it would work. It would probably result in someone getting hurt, and Sorey really doesn’t want Mikleo to get hurt because of him--because he couldn’t repress some feelings and man up and stop _floating_. “Fuck,” he says again. The grave he’s digging himself into continues to get even deeper.

Mikleo finishes brushing himself off and steps forward. Sorey steps backward until he hits the sink. “Fuck.”

“Sorey,” says Mikleo.

“Mikleo, you have no idea how much I don’t want to talk about this,” says Sorey. He stares resolutely at the bathtub, as if looking away will make the situation any better. “I really, really, really don’t want to talk about this.”

“Yeah, no shit,” says Mikleo. “But- Sorey, would you look at me?” He sighs. “I’m trying to make a point. I need you to- Sorey. Please.” Mikleo grabs the sides of his face, swivels his head to face forward.

Sorey blanches. Mikleo’s staring intensely into his eyes from about five inches away, his hands pressed to both of his cheeks. “I’m worried about you, okay?” he says. It’s an intimate position. It’s the kind of position people kiss in.

Sorey smells lavender and rain and tries to respond, but all that comes out is a squeak.

Mikleo’s eyes soften with amusement. “You know, you don’t have to tell me if you really don’t want to,” he says. “That’s fine. But I just want you to know that I’m- I’m here for you. This whole superpower thing is really confusing, and honestly terrifying, too, so what I’m trying to say is that- I guess- you don’t have to figure it out alone.” He laughs, softly. “I wouldn’t mind your help figuring out what I’m doing, either.” Sorey wonders if he knows his thumb is rubbing slowly across his cheek as he continues. “I care about you alot, and I know you care about me too, so it just… it just makes sense to help each other out. Right?”

“Right,” says Sorey faintly. “Yep, that makes a lot of sense. That, uh-”

Mikleo yelps, and jumps back. Sorey flinches with surprise in return. His face feels cold without Mikleo’s hands, which are now thrown up in front of him in surprise. “Sorey,” he says, “you’re floating.”

Sorey thinks he might actually be able to hear the sound of his safe little world of denial shattering around him. He opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. He twists behind him to look in the mirror, and yes, he’s floating a few inches off the sink counter. He catches Mikleo’s eye in the mirror and sees his expression turn from surprise to pensiveness--the kind of expression he has when he latches onto a particularly interesting thought.

That can’t be good.

“Uh, hey, Mik,” he says, anything to distract him from potentially figuring out the truth, which is, considering the fact that he’s one of the smartest people Sorey knows, probably where his mind is headed. “Feelings, right? They’re uh- a thing that we should talk about. In relation. To, you know, powers-”

“Sorey,” Mikleo interrupts, his eyes not quite focused on him in a way that shows how much he isn’t listening. “What emotion is your power triggered by?”

 _Fuck!_ “Uh,” says Sorey. “Uhhhhhhhh.” After a few seconds of silence, in which Sorey dies a thousand mental deaths, the best he can do is shrug weakly. “I don’t know?” He wonders why he hasn’t stopped floating yet. Is Mikleo’s cheek touch thing really staying with him for this long? That really is pathetic.

He drops back down to the counter with a small bump and a muffled yelp of surprise and pain. There it is. Unhelpfully, his mind supplies him with _the powers must cut out whenever you try to repress the feelings that caused it_ , which is a great realization to come to in general, but Sorey really wishes he could use that brainpower for something useful, like getting himself out of this situation, or maybe thinking of ways to throw himself out the window and run off into the woods to live as a hermit, forever.

“Hey, Sorey,” says Mikleo slowly, “you don’t have to answer this and I don’t want to- presume or anything, but uh- this sounds stupid- I just want to rule out the possibility that-”

“I like you,” Sorey blurts. The horror of what he’s done hits him a second later, so strong that his mind shuts down completely-- closes up shop and leaves, probably in protest, going on strike. It’s because of this that the fact that Sorey opens his mouth and manages to remedy his blunder is nothing short of a miracle: “You just wanted to rule out the possibility that I like you?”

Maybe he was better off without a working brain all along.

“Uh, yeah,” says Mikleo. This time he’s the one to break their eye contact. “Sorry. Like I said, I didn’t want to presume, it’s just that. It seemed reasonable.”

He’s blushing, and better yet, he doesn’t seem to realize that Sorey just inadvertently confessed to him.

Why is he blushing?

If his brain weren’t on strike, it could probably provide a very reasonable response that doesn’t involve ‘he likes me back’. But the thought is so sudden and paralyzing and painfully viable that it sucks up all other explanations like a black hole of butterflies and warm crushy feelings. It’s not even a realistic conclusion. But Sorey can’t believe he never even considered the possibility before.

A small smile spreads across his face, before he can help it. “Why are you blushing?” he asks.

Mikleo’s eyes widen, his hands jerk as if for a moment he was going to hide his face. “I’m not,” he says quickly.

“You are,” says Sorey, hopping down from the counter. He studies Mikleo’s face, and the red on his cheekbones deepens. “You just blushed harder!”

Mikleo’s expression is briefly mortified before he spins around so Sorey can’t see his face. “You never answered my question,” he says.

And just like that, his brief moment of euphoria is over. Sorey swallows, hard. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess I never did.”

The silence that follows after that is so complete and stifling that Sorey wants to scream. There’s no other people in the house. Outside, the frigid air blows past the bathroom window, whistling softly in the cracks. What’s it like living in Canada? Canadians are nice people. Sorey’s a nice person. He figures they’d get along pretty well.

“This is so awkward.” Mikleo’s voice has the quality of a person about to step off the roof of a very tall building. “One of us is just going to have to come out and say it.”

“Say- say what?”

Mikleo turns back around. His smile is a bit shaky, but characteristically, one of his brows is quirked. “Sorey, what do you _think_?”

“Um,” says Sorey. “Mikleo, you don’t- you don’t like _me_ , do you?”

The look on Mikleo’s face is unreadable as he closes the distance between them with a step. He takes Sorey’s hands. “Hey, I just want you to know,” he says, “whatever your answer is- whatever _my_ answer is- doesn’t change anything between us. Okay?”

“Okay,” Sorey repeats dumbly. “Are we- are we ever going to actually-”

“On the count of three?” asks Mikleo. His eyes mirror the terror that Sorey feels so acutely in his chest that he thinks Mikleo can probably tell how badly his hands are shaking. “Say our answers together.”

Sorey nods.

“One,” they say. For a moment, Sorey’s not sure if he can actually form the syllable ‘yes’ for how speechlessly terrified he is. “Two.” The feeling recedes, replaced by a desperate, empty kind of acceptance. He’s dug himself into this grave. He’s not getting out anytime soon.

“Three.”

Mikleo kisses him.

Mikleo _kisses_ him.

His lips are soft.

Sorey doesn’t register much else besides that and shock as they break away to a soundtrack of unsteady breathing and silence. For a second, Mikleo looks so objectively terrified--his eyes are blown wide, lips still parted from the kiss, color high on his cheeks. Sorey hears his heartbeat rushing in his ears. Mikleo looks so scared.

 _He shouldn’t be,_ Sorey thinks, the thought rushing to break open like a golden bubble inside of him. He tightens his grip on Mikleo’s hands and kisses him back.

He can feel Mikleo’s startled inhale before his lips go soft and pliant and leans into the kiss, his hands returning Sorey’s comforting squeeze. _It’s okay,_ he’s saying, and although it only lasts a second--it’s chaste, if anything--Mikleo’s lips on his is its own kind of conversation, and they replace anything he could possibly say.

When they break for a second time Sorey lingers close, pressing his forehead to Mikleo’s. He’s a little dizzy with disbelief and happiness and lack of air.

Mikleo is first to speak. “...What.” He glances away briefly, almost like he's assuring himself that this is real, and then a smile breaks out on his face, colors his words. “What.”

Sorey can’t help but mirror his expression, and can’t think of anything clever to say. “I’m… guessing your answer is yes?”

“Obviously, genius, who do you think just kissed you?” Mikleo rolls his eyes and lets out an amused breath. “We’re idiots.”

“I can’t believe you were the one to kiss me first.”

“I can’t believe you made me! It was just- you were right there, so.” Mikleo closes his eyes briefly, lashes fluttering over his cheeks. God, he’s beautiful. Sorey revels in the feeling. “Sorry I was pushing the whole ‘tell me what’s wrong’ thing, I just- sort of suspected and I was hoping you’d confess.”

“That’s so cute.”

Mikleo makes an embarrassed sound and buries his face in Sorey’s shoulder. “It’s not that cute.”

“It’s _so_ cute.”

“Shut up.” says Mikleo, although his words don’t hold any bite. “Well, I’m glad you think so. I’m glad it worked out.”

“Me too,” says Sorey. “I was about to cut all ties and move to Canada if you found out. I thought it would ruin everything.”

Mikleo groans. “We’re such idiots,” he says again. “This could’ve been so much simpler if we just a tiny bit braver. Or if we had thought about it less.”

“Beats the art history documentary, though.”

“No shit,” says Mikleo, “I can’t believe-” he cuts off with a yelp. _“Sorey!_ ”

Sorey’s head bumps against the bathroom ceiling and he startles, clinging to Mikleo reflexively as he takes in the several feet of space between them and the floor. For a second he just stares. “Oh my god- I’m sorry-”

There’s a few moments of silence before they both burst out laughing. Sorey can feel the way Mikleo’s chest shakes against his; he’s burying his snorts in Sorey’s shoulder and his arms are wrapped tightly around his back. It’s all so mind blowing, that the tiny, tiny off-chance that Mikleo maybe liked him back was actually _real._ He can’t believe that all of this is happening.

But he doesn’t really have it in him to convince himself that it isn’t true.

“Do you know how to get down?” Mikleo asks, still resting his head on Sorey’s shoulder, his voice muffled in the fabric of his sweatshirt.

“Uh,” says Sorey, “no.”

Mikleo is silent for another couple seconds before, inexplicably, he stifles another laugh. His breath ghosts across Sorey’s neck, raising goosebumps, and Sorey can hear the smile in his voice as he whispers over the shell of his ear: “At least we can keep ourselves occupied.”

 

…

 

“So, collateral damage from today,” Sorey says, as they both lay recovering from the fall from the bathroom ceiling. “One broken plumbing system, one bruised tailbone, two possible concussions.” He lets his head fall back against the rug, watching Mikleo rub his elbow beside him. “Do you regret it?”

Mikleo gives him a wry smile. “What do you think?”

Sorey huffs out a laugh, feeling so buoyant he almost thinks he’s started floating again.

“Me too.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> ghghghgh please excuse everyones ooc-ness, i really tried but the struggle to balance making sormik modern teenagers and making them /sormik/ is a hard one for me ;;
> 
> thanks sm for reading!! im on tumblr @ kousea if you want to chat!


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